Up Against a Wall
by Let's Call Her The Tarryn
Summary: Love is mistaken for loathing. Love is just mistaken. Love is feeling like you never felt before. Love is that beating inside your chest. Love is feeling like you're about to fall. Love is a wall. Or maybe it's just being pressed up against one. .Dasey.


Truthfully, I have no idea where this came from. I was bored, and somehow my fingers just began to type this. I had no idea where it was going. It just took on a life of its own for absolutely no reason. So here's a little no nothing Dasey that I wrote randomly. Enjoy my loves!

.I own nothing.

x—x

"You're a jerk! You have absolutely no compassion!" Casey screamed at me.

How many times have I heard these words from her?

"Oh, but that's why you love me." I smirked, knowing that it always made her more angry with me.

I watched something flash in her eyes before she took a (quite menacing) step toward me.

"Are you deluded? I _hate _you." She emphasized. "And you have no right to use the word love. You have no idea what it means. You've never shown it, never been in it, and will _never, ever _have it." She spat at me.

I felt myself involuntarily stiffen. My back straightened, my face hardened.

"And _ you _have no right to tell me whether I have loved or not." I growled.

She didn't waver in the slightest. Her stance remained defiant, as did her features, twisted into a sneer. As if she was laughing inside at me. As if she knew what she was talking about.

"Oh. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I must be so mistaken. You were in love with Emily right? The girl you ignored all your life? Or was it Sandra? Or Kendra. Kendra! It _must _have been Kendra. Or maybe Lucy, the one you almost cheated on Kendra with." Casey said sarcastically.

"You don't know what you're talking about." My voice suddenly an octave above a whisper.

How was she able to do this? How? How could she stand there, so much loathing, so much contempt. How could she make me feel the way I thought I'd never feel. So hated when I was always loved. So unwanted when I was always needed. So unimportant when I always came first.

And so incapable when I was always able to get what I wanted.

"I think I know exactly what I'm talking about." She said confidently.

"You don't know how I feel, or what I think-"

"I know _you_. That's enough to know that you don't _feel or think." _She spat.

I laughed bitterly. "Yeah. Yeah, because you know me so well. I didn't feel when I tried to protect you from getting hurt by Sam and Max-"

"That wasn't feeling or protection, that was sabotage!"

"I didn't think or feel when I helped when Lizzie's soccer coach was cheating on you. Or when I called your dad, or-"

"Why are you only using me as an example? Trying to impress me so I won't think you're a horrible person? Well, too late."

"Dammit, Casey!" I found myself screaming. "You're the only example I can think of. You make me feel and think. Feel things I never wanted to feel. Feel things I never thought I could feel. Think things I never wanted. Think way too much!"

Casey just stared at me, her unwavering demeanor finally seeming to have been shaken.

When she finally spoke, I was stung with the fierceness in her whisper, the hurt in her eyes.

"You are more cruel than I thought."

And she walked away, leaving me freezing.

--

As I lied in my bed staring at the ceiling I tried to make sense of Casey's words.

I had probably come the closest I ever would to admitting how I felt (Not that I was even completely sure how I felt) and she had somehow found my proclamation cruel.

I just didn't get it.

I tried to listen through the heavy silence in the air for any activity in the room next to mine. I heard nothing. Not a rustle, not a footstep, not a sob. Nothing. It was unnerving. I wanted- I needed to know and understand what she had meant.

I forced myself to sit up and leave my room. As I stood in front of her closed bedroom door and still heard nothing. Was she sleeping? Or was she just being neurotically quiet? I couldn't tell. Taking a deep breath, I raised my fist to the door, ready to knock. And that's when I heard a rustle from within the room. For some reason both my fist and my heart dropped, and I quickly turned around. Confused by my own reaction, I decided to go downstairs. Get something to eat. And then go back and hide in my room.

I groped the stair railing in the dark until I reached the floor and went to the kitchen, a route I knew by memory, and switched on the lights. I squinted for a moment, and then my eyes once again became adjusted to the light, and I moved forward to the refrigerator, and opened the door. My eyes roved the shelves, not finding much. After a moment I resolutely pulled out the carton of milk, and put in on the counter, and then I pulled a glass from under the counter. As I poured the milk, I heard someone clear their throat.

I turned to see Casey leaning against the kitchen entrance. She didn't look angry, like she had earlier, but I was still scared.

"Actually using a glass." She said. "I could fall over in shock."

It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about, and she could tell I was confused, so she motioned toward my glass of milk. Which caused me to feel like an idiot, which, I guess it fitting, since I am one.

"Oh, yeah. I just drink out of the carton to bug you." I murmured, and then felt even more like an idiot. Like I should really say something like that right now. _Smooth, Derek. Smooth._

But she didn't say anything and just lightly shook her head.

I looked at my glass of milk silently, feeling her looking at me. I hated how she could make me feel so unnerved. I hated that anyone could have such power over me. Thank God she didn't know it or my life might be more of a hell than it already is. How is it Hell, you ask? I have to live with her. And if I were to say that out loud, everyone who heard would take it as it's hell because she's so annoying and frustrating, and I hate her. But that's not how it would be meant. It's meant, meaning it's hell that I have to live with a girl unlike any that I've ever known, and I'm supposed to call her family. That I want to hold her, and the only contact I have is supposed to be completely platonic. That with how we fight, I should completely despise her, but I feel anything but. It's a hell that I'm trapped in. It's a hell within myself.

Sometimes I wonder if she has a hell. And then I have to stop myself, because I realize I don't want to think about it. Because I know that she does have a hell. Her hell is me, because she hates me. My hell is her, because I _don't_ hate her.

"I don't understand you, Derek." I heard Casey murmur. She said it so softly that I wasn't even sure if it was meant for me to hear. I responded anyway.

"What do you mean, you don't understand me?" I asked, looking toward her.

"I mean just that." She said simply, crossing her arms across her chest. She looked extremely tired, but not the sleepy tired. The emotional tired.

"And you think I understand you?" I asked.

"No." Casey said simply. "But I don't understand why not. I'm pretty simple."

"Bull, you are." I murmured.

We were silent for a moment before I spoke again.

"Why did you call me crueler than you thought I was, earlier?"

I was surprised when she scoffed at my question as if it were completely ridiculous.

"Are you seriously asking me that?" She asked.

Was this a trick question? "Um, yes." 

"God, Derek. Why do you keep messing with me?" She asked, her shoulders slumping.

"Excuse me?" What was she talking about?

"Why do you keep messing with my feelings?" She asked. Her eyes bore into mine as if searching for the answer I was apparently not able to give her.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said. Because I really, really didn't.

"You should know what I'm talking about! You've been doing it for two years." Casey cried. I watched as her patience began to grow thin.

"What, making you mad?" I was really confused.

Casey scoffed and shook her head. "You're just way too much, Derek Venturi." She began to turn, but I called out her name. She didn't turn to look at me, but she stopped.

"Just tell me what you meant when you said I was crueler than you thought." I pleaded softly.

"You're crueler than I thought because you played with my feelings." She murmured, still not turning to look at me.

"What do you-"

"You said I make you feel and think things that you don't want to." She whispered. "Saying as if it meant something when all it means is you can't stand me."

My mouth went dry. What was she talking about?

"Case." I took a small step toward her. "What are you talking about? And I can stand you. You're the one who hates me."

"Don't turn this all on me." She snapped, twirling around to face me. "You ignore what's your fault and go straight to what you can blame on me."

"What's my fault again?" I asked, my temper beginning to bend.

"My emotional turmoil!" Casey cried.

I scoffed. "And how did I cause your emotional turmoil this time, Case?"

She looked at me like I was stupid. "Have you not listened to a thing I've said?"

"Yeah, I just haven't understood any of it."

"Jesus, I"m not wasting my time anymore!" She cried, throwing her hands in the air.

"Oh, and what's that supposed to me?" I asked heatedly.

I watched her emotions snap. "Exactly that! I'm not going to stand around and put myself through hell anymore! I'm tired of you playing games with me. It's either yes or no, me or not me!"

"Dammit, Case, I haven't been playing with you!" I cried.

"If you weren't playing with me, we wouldn't be here right now." Casey glared at me, crossing her arms.

"Really, and where would we be?" I asked.

I watched her facial expression change as it softened with sadness. "We'd be together."

My heart sped up, finally understanding what she had been saying for the past ten minutes. I almost didn't believe it-the whole 'too good to be true' thing. But as I watched her, I could tell her heart was pounding too.

"Case-"

"No, please don't." She said, taking a step back. "I understand. It's stupid, and disgusting, and you hate me, and we can forget any of this ever happened."

She tried to walk away, and I was so stunned that I almost let her.

Then I blinked and realized that I was letting the most amazing, intelligent, stubborn, wonderful girl I had ever known walk away from me.

I shook my head and then jogged in the direction she had gone. She was barely at the stairs, almost as if she had been purposefully slow in hope that I would follow her. I followed alright.

She knew I was there, so she stopped, with her hand on the railing. I laid a hand on her shoulder and felt her every muscle tense.

"Casey." I said so softly that I wasn't even sure if she could hear me. But she did.

She began to turn around slowly, pausing before completely facing me. She was silently crying. She could barely ever cry without sobbing, but I had the feeling that she wasn't making noise because she could barely breath. I couldn't breath either.

We held each other's gazes silently for a moment before I leaned in so that my lips captured hers in the softest kiss I've ever given. It was like we were speaking, writing the words with gentle brushes. They were words of wanting, and feeling, and promise, and even love. I pulled away, a warmth spreading through my entire body, and I could feel the same warmth within her, because it almost felt as though it were radiating off of her. I leaned my face in so that my lips were nearly brushing her ear.

"Can you tell me if I've ever loved, now?" I whispered softly.

I knew she had heard all the words we had just silently spoken.

I pulled back so that I could look at her, and I stared at her intently until we both had matching smirks tugging at the corner of our mouths.

And that's all it took for her to have me up against a wall.

x—x

Not too sure how I feel about this, but like I said, it wasn't planned at all. I don't know why I made it the way I did, and I really need your feedback for this because all of my other stories I sat and thought about for a little while. I didn't with this one. I hope you guys will be there for me on this.

Also, FYI, this was submitted one 11-4-07. And if you're reading this on 11-5-07 I would REALLY appreciate a review since November 5th marks my official one year anniversary for writing on Fanfiction! I love you, my wonderful Feedback Monkeys! You keep me here and make my days so much brighter!

Review, loves.

-Tarryn


End file.
